DM Monitoring
BEIJING: China and India held the eight round of commander-level meeting, Chinese Defense Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
According to the statement, the two sides had a “candid, in-depth and constructive exchange of views on disengagement along the Line of Actual Control in the western sector of China-India border areas.”
The meeting ended up with both sides agreeing to “earnestly implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries” and ensure their frontline troops remain restraint.
The two parties reiterated to maintain dialogue and communication through military and diplomatic channels so as to avoid misunderstanding and miscalculation, and push forward settlement of the issues, added the statement. They have also agreed to have another round of meeting soon.
Earlier Friday India’s top military commander said, a tense border standoff with Chinese forces in the western Himalayas could spark a larger conflict, even as senior commanders from both sides met near the frontline for their eighth round of talks.
Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat said the situation was tense at the Line of Actual Control, the de facto border, in eastern Ladakh, where thousands of Indian and Chinese troops are locked in a months-long confrontation. “We will not accept any shifting of the Line of Actual Control,” Rawat said in an online address.
“In the overall security calculus, border confrontations, transgressions and unprovoked tactical military actions spiralling into a larger conflict cannot therefore be discounted,” he said.
Brutal hand-to-hand combat in June left 20 Indian and an undisclosed number of Chinese soldiers dead, escalating tensions and triggering large deployments on the remote, desolate border area.
Both sides have since attempted to ease the situation through diplomatic and military channels, but have made little headway, leaving soldiers facing-off in sub-zero temperatures in Ladakh’s snow deserts.
